Free The People in the Park by Margaree King Mitchell

felt good to snuggle with her; I can’t remember the last time we had done so. I put my spoon in the carton and retrieved a big scoop of black walnut ice cream, my favorite.
    “Where are the lawyers?” I asked.
    “Gone,” Mom said. “They’re finished.”
    “Where’s Dad?”
    “Out to dinner with the lawyers. They’re treating him tonight. I didn’t want to go.”
    “You should’ve gone,” I said.
    “Why?” she said. “It’s your Dad’s problem. Let him fix it. Where were you?”
    “I drove to Columbia,” I said. “I just felt like driving and driving.”
    “I know the feeling,” she said.
    “Mom,” I said. “Can I ask you something?”
    “Of course.”
    “Do you think Dad will clear his name?”
    “The lawyers seem to think so.” She paused to eat a scoop of ice cream. “I hope so.”
    “What are we going to do if his case has to go to trial?” I asked.
    “We’re not going to think about that,” she said. “It can’t happen. You need to focus on your studies and do your best so you can get into a good college. I want you to have a career, something I didn’t have.”
    “You used to work in advertising, wasn’t that a career?” I asked.
    “But I didn’t keep with it after your father and I got married. It was important for him that I work on charities and be available to host dinners for his colleagues and clients.” She looked at me strangely. “If I had to do it over, I would’ve kept working so I could have something of my own.”
    I leaned my head over to her shoulder and she put her arm with the ice cream box around me. “Don’t make the same mistake.”
    Signaling she was finished with that topic, she said, “Have you seen Jay?”
    “At school. He doesn’t talk to me anymore.”
    “Now that’s the kind of man you want to steer clear of,” she said. “Someone who doesn’t want to be seen with you and who cancels the prom because of your father’s situation is no stand-up guy. You can do better!”
    “Ever since we started upper school I always dreamed of going to the prom with Jay,” I said. “I envisioned him seeing me in my dress for the first time and wondered what he would say and how he would look at me. I could see us dancing practically every dance. Now that’s not going to happen.”
    “But you are going to the prom!”
    “Mom. How can I?”
    “You are going to have a date too.”
    “Mom. You can’t set me up with anybody.”
    “I don’t intend to. Your prom fees are paid and you are going, with your date, who is not Jay.”
    She was so emphatic that I couldn’t do anything but laugh. Soon she was laughing, too.
    Laughing felt real good. I can’t remember the last time I laughed. Just Mom and me.
    I could tell she was thinking the same thing when she put her head atop mine and whispered, “Where have all the years gone, baby?”
    I thought of something. I sat up in bed and turned to look at her.
    “Mom, did I tell you that Jay’s friends were the ones who spray painted my car? Rick and Jared.”
    “No! His friends did that? You are definitely not going to the prom with him.”
    Mom put the ice cream carton aside. She became very quiet. I could tell that her mother hen protective instinct had kicked in. She was ready to leave this room and leave this house and go out in public and fight on my behalf, regardless of who saw her. I could tell she was hurt, too. Rick and Jared had been to our house many times over the years.
    “Those are the kinds of people he hangs out with? Now you know what his true character is,” she said softly.
     
     
     
     

15
     
    I settled into an afternoon of shopping with my friends.
    This was the first Saturday afternoon I had hung out with them since the scandal broke. I was doing more window-shopping than Callie, Melanie, and Stacie. Things had not changed for them. Callie’s father was CEO of a multi-national corporation. They lived in a sprawling estate on a hill on the outskirts of town. Melanie and